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Friday, December 28, 2012

Are you an artist or illustrator trying to break into the children's book or app market? Check out Will Terry's online art classes on design, illustration, Photoshop, digital painting, and more at the Folio Academy.

Monday, December 24, 2012

If you have arrived in the middle of the adventure, you may start at the beginning by going HERE.

Search for the Woodcutter

The woodcutter was not nearby. Erik dashed to the castle stable and tossed a saddle and bridle on his pony, Benton. In no time he was mounted and trotting smartly across the drawbridge, down the frozen road, and into the forest.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

My daughters and I had fun tonight with a new app, Foldify. It's a simple concept: create 3D figures on an iPad following suggested templates; print out the result; and then fold it into the 3D object. The cute box creature my daughter made looked like this while she was working on it on the iPad:

Screenshot from Foldify

As she painted and decorated the template on the right, she could visualize what it would look like on the left. She could also rotate the 3D image to show all sides. The app is well worth its current sale price of $1.99.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Although I only completed 4-5 picture book manuscripts as part of the 12 x 12 in 2012 challenge, I've had a super creative year. So in this party post, I celebrate my creative highlights and share what I learned, including some resources for illustrators and writers.

Creative Highlights of 2012

(1) In April, I was thrilled to be a part of New Waves 2012, a curated exhibit of "up and coming" artists at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

After living in this area for over 6 years, I'm still discovering the cool artistic opportunities we have here. In Norfolk, the Chrysler Museum opened The Glass Studio a year ago. It's a working studio that hosts daily glass making demonstrations, visiting artists, and classes and workshops.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

I've been quite interested in the rise of e-books, from both a reader's and a writer's perspective (check out my comic on the battle of ebooks v. readers). Teachingdegree.org has published a fascinating update of how people currently use e-books and print books. Most of the information is not surprising to me (people with e-readers read more books and also read printed books), but it was interesting to learn that reading e-books is slower than print books.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Recently, I've noticed a bunch of fun bear-centric picture books. Although they seem to be the new "it" character (like penguins were for awhile), bears have always been mainstays in picture books. Here's a roundup of great bear picture books, both classic and new:

New or Newish Bear Books

Goldilocks and Just One Bear, by Leigh Hodgkinson (Candlewick Press, 2011) This is a delightful story of a bear who is lost in the big city and ends up in a penthouse apartment. He sit on chairs that are too hard and too soft; he tries to eat porridge that is too soggy or too crunchy; he tries to find just the right bed. Cleverly, the illustrations show that the things he is trying out are very different from the text (the "chairs" turn out to be cacti and a cat; the "porridge" is a fishbowl or cat food). In a neat twist, the family comes home and the golden-haired mom looks awfully familiar to the bear.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Lately I've been enjoying the Dada-esque qualities of the spam comments Blogger screens. Do you think real people are hired to write these comments, or are the mish mash of words generated from some addled AI program?

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

We were lucky that Hurricane Sandy mostly passed us by. We had lots of rain and wind, and the kids had no school, so we took advantage of their day off to carve some pumpkins. This year my 8-year old wanted a really scary pumpkin so I drew this and she carved it:

We were also at a fair earlier in the Fall and came across a pumpkin and gourd artist who carved the surface of pumpkins using carving tools for linoleum blocks. I had some at home so thought I'd give it a go:

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

So you started a blog. What's the secret to increasing its page views? This blog is tiny compared to many, but happily, it's going in an upward direction.

This blog bumped along until a year ago, when I made a concerted effort to post more consistently and increase my exposure. Here are five things I did that helped increase my page views and readership:

I also take heart, because although it still helps to be Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, or Laura Numeroff to get featured on the main shelf, look at the top left corner. Sherri Duskey Rinker is a first-time author who has seen her debut picture book, Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site rocket to the best-seller charts. My blogging friend Romelle Broas has a fascinating interview with Sherri about how she defied all the unwritten rules of the publishing industry (no rhyming books, you need an agent, no bedtime stories) to achieve her success.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

I had a great time participating in illustrator Diandra Mae's Sweet Squares challenge. I started out doing a piece every day, and ended up doing groups of pieces, but I felt that I learned a new technique or tried out a new idea in each piece. I'll definitely continue to make more squares.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Today, I started the day with good news from the local paper: scientists recently found an unusual creature in the Lafayette River in Norfolk, Virginia: the lined seahorse. It's good news because these seahorses like clean water, which shows that the multi-year restoration project to make the river, which suffers from high bacteria levels and algae blooms, fishable and swimmable by 2014 may be making progress. (A 1979 paper described the river as "a shallow, turbid, urban estuary, polluted with primary treated sewage").(This Sweet Square is part of my continuing explorations with watercolor).If you liked this post, you may also like:

There are few days in my life that I'll never forget, and 9/11 was one of them: my husband was in Manhattan and I was at a meeting a block from the White House when we heard of the attacks. I was six months pregnant with my daughter, and I remember walking 10 blocks back to my office, staring in horror along with everyone else on the crowded and traffic-jammed streets, as we looked at the smoke coming from the Pentagon to the south. It was the first time in my life I felt a personal sense of danger from a terrorist attack (as opposed to muggers and other city dangers). I remember wondering bitterly what kind of world my daughter would be born into, and being angry that everything would be different from then on.

Well, those feelings faded as life went on. Though the country went to war, Homeland Security was set up, color-coded threat levels were created, and 6 ounce bottles of gels were confiscated, I never again felt so personally connected to the world of terrorism. The news today reminds me that American diplomats and troops are on the front lines every day, and that it is very real to them. And it is real to the citizens who live in these war-torn countries. In the world their children are born into, it's not so easy to dismiss violence and terrorism as a sad news story.

Monday, September 10, 2012

I'm not much of a water colorist, so I figured Sweet Squares would be a good time to experiment with water colors. I made different squares of washes and then made a doodle inspired by one of the washes. The shape of the colors reminded me of an old-fashioned nautical map, so I drew a small, quick one.

In "Funky Frog," I used the paint bucket tool to randomly drop colors onto the existing wax patterns in the frog. Clicking the bucket tool repeatedly to increase the size of the color swatch resulted in interesting effects like the outline around the eyeballs. I painted the background using a large watercolor brush tool.

Friday, September 7, 2012

(1) It's my fourth entry for Sweet Squares, a 30-day challenge to draw or create something every day. So far I've been on a cephalod kick, drawing a nautilus, octopus, and kraken, and adding some fun facts. Here are my squid facts:

Thursday, September 6, 2012

I've always liked the old-fashioned look of wood-cut or lino-cut printing, and I've even tried my hand at doing some in the past (for example, of surf boards). For today's Sweet Square, I've made a sketch of a kraken in a block cut style.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Illustrator Diandra Mae has started Sweet Squares, a challenge to draw, paint, or create something every day for 30 days, with no expectations other than to explore and have fun. I thought I would give it a try.

More of the center display...the illustrated chapter book seems to be popular.

Every half year or so, I go to the big name bookstore in town (rhymes with Yarns and Global) to see what picture books they feature in the middle wall of the kids' section. This is my totally unscientific way to assess current picture book trends, or at least find out what picture books are considered the biggest commercial sellers.Last week I went in and found . . . no picture books at all in that section. Instead, middle grade books were being featured, with a whole section devoted to the graphic novel/illustrated chapter books that were popularized by the Wimpy Kid series.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

I just spent a week in Shelburne, Vermont, and enjoyed 7 nights of beautiful sunsets over Lake Champlain (actually, Shelburne Bay, which is connected to Lake Champlain). Even though we often get beautiful sunsets in Virginia Beach, there is something special about viewing a sunset over water. Just thought I'd share this special one from our second to last evening.

Jessica Hagy is an artist and a writer with a mathematical mind. She draws clever and funny charts and Venn diagrams on all aspects of the human condition. Her blog has been popular since 2006, and her work is published in several books, including one of my favorite recent purchases, Information Graphics. Sample index card:

Monday, August 6, 2012

Last month during one of the summer heat waves, my kids and I tried to bake cookies in our car. Our experiment was only half successful. It was close to 100 degrees outside, but instead of parking the car in the sun for several hours and letting nature and car do its course, we had to do some errands. So we kept opening the "oven" and cooling it down with AC. In the end, we only had half baked cookies that we finished in a real oven. The car smelled great, though, and next time we'll get it right.If you liked this post, you may also enjoy:

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Sometimes it's too easy to let my kids sit in front of the computer or the TV, so I made this chart to remind myself of the many non-screen options we have. If you enjoyed this post, you may also like:

Friday, July 13, 2012

I tend to think authors who write books of over 1000 pages are a bit indulgent and rely on the good will of their rabid fans. But since I am one of those fans, I loved every page of Neal Stephenson's REAMDE (William Morrow, 2011). It's a page-turning geeky techno-thriller that reads like a mashup of Guy Ritchie movies (think Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels), James Bond movies, and all the hacker movies you've ever seen.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Recently, my kids and I have started listening to books on CD on most of our car rides, whether 10 minute errands or longer trips. I don't know why it took us so long to figure out that this is a great way to fill up what adds up to be significant amounts of time.

Listening to a book is a very different experience than reading one. I enjoy the choice phrases and descriptions more. It's a small luxury to hear a professional actor read a story aloud. And it's a good way to introduce books that may be beyond my younger daughter's reading level. Here are the ones my girls (10 and 8) have enjoyed the most recently:

Sunday, July 1, 2012

My fellow members of the 12x12 in 2012 challenge (the goal is to write 12 picture books in 12 months in 2012) are checking in and joining the rollicking half-way point blog party. I'm crashing this party, because I haven't completed my six manuscripts. I'm over half way through the half way goal, so that counts for something, right?

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

My June batch of comics/infographics/illustrations are up at AltDaily.com. These are older pieces because summer tends to be a busier time for me than the rest of the year when my girls are in school. It's been great being a regular contributor to www.AltDaily.com, a pretty happening local arts/culture/politics site. Here are the rest of the posts I've had there:

Friday, June 15, 2012

Some cool news: an infographic I designed for the nonprofit ocean conservation group, Oceana, on oil imports and gas prices, has been published at the Huffington Post. Oceana researched the question whether the amount of oil a country imports affects its gas prices at the pump, and the answer was no. I helped translate this information into this infographic on gas prices.

I used to work for Oceana as an attorney, so it was great to work with them in a new capacity as a commissioned graphic designer/illustrator.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

If you're at all interested in science fiction/space westerns and haven't seen the TV series, "Firefly," by Joss Whedon, run to your nearest Netflix/Amazon/other source of video entertainment and watch the 14 episodes right now. Add the movie, "Serenity," and you will be my true friend. Shiny.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Continuing on the theme of nostalgic memories, I came across my Kindergarten report card recently. I love the mid-century design vibe of this report card. I doubt anything a kid brings home these days has this much style. I also like how the skills required to graduate from Kindergarten were much simpler back when.